The History of Opium, Heroin and Synthetic Opioids
Article by Drug Science
Since its discovery, the opium poppy (Papaver somniferum) has been a tool of healing, control, and death. The opium poppy was first cultivated for its psychoactive effects in 3400 B.C. in lower Mesopotamia, and since then, opioids have spread across the globe, totalling more than 100,000 deaths in 2023 in the US alone. All of the modern opioids can trace their routes, directly or indirectly, to the opium poppy and this cultivation nearly 6,000 years ago. The opium poppy contains a mixture of psychoactive alkaloids including opium (~10-12%), thebaine (with stimulant rather than depressant effects), codeine and other, less prevalent, alkaloids. To harvest the plants, the unripe poppy is typically scored and the milk-like substance is dried. This process produces opium, with a yield of about 80mg of opium from each pod.
Opium can be consumed in its natural form, as a mixture of alkaloids, but these days it is typically used to produce potent opioids like morphine and heroin.
The first real introduction of opium into ‘modern’ Europe was in the form of Laudanum. This was a tincture containing a mixture of opium and alcohol, and amazingly was initially advertised as being non-addictive. Laudanum spread rapidly throughout Europe, especially in England, and the US in the 19th century. Its appeal is clear – a medicine to treat coughing and dysentery, and even produce feelings of euphoria, must have been a very appealing option. It certainly didn’t help that, due to its status as a medicine and resulting tax-free status, laudanum was considerably cheaper than alcohol.
The Opium Wars
Opium was banned in China, by Emperor Kia King, in 1799. By this time the British East India company had established a monopoly on the opium trade, and the Chinese ban was seen as easily ignored. For 40 years, until 1839, the East India company freely traded opium in China, despite the existing ban imposed on the drug. By 1839, there were an estimated 12 million Chinese people addicted to opium. Lin Zexu was charged with ending the flow of opium into China. He ordered the immediate surrender of opium being imported to China, offering compensation in the form of tea and rhubarb, and wrote to Queen Victoria. The following excerpt outlines his feelings and demands:
“Your honourable nation takes away the products of our central land, and not only do you thereby obtain food and support for yourselves, but moreover, by re-selling these products to other countries you reap a threefold profit. Now if you would only not sell opium, this threefold profit would be secured to you: how can you possibly consent to forgo it for a drug that is hurtful to men, and an unbridled craving after gain that seems to know no bounds!”
The British retaliated with force, sending war ships to Canton to force the Chinese to continue allowing the opium trade to flourish, marking the start of the first Opium War. The second Opium War began in 1856, when a ship carrying opium was seized by the Chinese, and the crew were arrested. After another British victory, the Treaty of Tientsin was signed. This required that China pay reparations, expand the ports available to European trade and legalise opium. Despite this, due to resistance to the treaty the British continued their assault, resulting in the signing of the Convention of Peking by Prince Gong.
The Opium Wars were a disgraceful period of British history, an example of profit over people, and should be remembered as such. They led to the Century of Humiliation, when the Chinese people were not given control over their own territory, and internal and foreign policy.
Legal Regulation of Opium and Opioids
Increasing legal regulation of opium in the west was led largely by increased understanding of the dangers of the drug and anti-immigrant sentiments. Britain passed laws in 1868 to limit prescriptions of opium, preventing pharmacists from prescribing the drug, and America limited the smoking of opium to specific, private places (opium dens).
World War One saw strengthening of international anti-drug sentiments. Where the Hague convention had failed before the war due to lack of agreement between nations, significantly more success was seen during and after the war. The treaty was registered with the United Nations in 1922, but came into force three years earlier.
From Opium to Heroin to Synthetic Opioids
Obviously, we are no longer limited to opium in its raw form. Morphine was isolated from opium in the early 19th century, offering better potency and removing the guesswork involved in the administration of natural substances, which can vary from plant to plant. The invention of the hypodermic needle, facilitating injection of the drug as opposed to oral use of laudanum, led doctors of the time to assume it would be less addictive than opium (a belief we now know couldn’t be further from the truth). In the 1860s, morphine was prescribed for almost every ailment one could think of.
As understanding of morphine’s dangers grew, heroin was being discovered. Heroin was first synthesised from opium in 1874, but did not see widespread recognition until 1898. Heroin, like morphine, was initially advertised as being non-addictive. Heroin pills flavoured with rose and chocolate could be purchased over the counter. Other opioids have been introduced since, but none have been as instrumental to today’s landscape of opioid use as heroin and morphine.
Historically, the major producers of opium for heroin production were situated in the Golden Triangle (an area spanning Myanmar, Thailand and Laos). From about 2010 production in the Golden Triangle declined due to sustained international efforts, but predictably demand was filled elsewhere. Afghanistan took over the production of opium, supplying 80% of the world’s opium by 2022. Afghan opium production fell by 95% following the Taliban take-over, creating global demand. This appears to have been filled primarily by Myanmar.
Opium poppies are typically smuggled from opium-producing areas into heroin-producing areas, but recently there appears to be increased synthesis of heroin from opium at the source. Smuggling routes are not common knowledge, but typically utilise low-risk borders to reduce the chance of seizures.
Following the discovery of heroin, many semi-synthetic and synthetic opioids have been created in a search for more effective and less addictive opioids. These include oxymorphone (first synthesised in Germany in 1914 from thebaine), oxycodone, hydrocodone and hundreds of others.
Today, drugs like fentanyl and nitazenes are a growing problem across the world. These drugs are fully synthetic opioids, meaning that they are produced without the need for opium poppies. Fentanyl’s use skyrocketed in 2013, half a century after it was synthesised and first introduced into medical care. It is an incredibly potent opioid, and a dose of just 2 mg can be fatal to opioid naïve users. Nitazenes were first developed in the 1950s but were never approved for medical use. There are a number of nitazenes in the illicit market, ranging in strength from being similar to heroin to some analogues with similar strength to fentanyl. The potency of fentanyl and nitazenes makes them very risky. It is always important to test your drugs with our opioid drug testing kit, but ideally, professional drug testing services would be used where synthetic opioids are suspected. Nitazenes are hard to detect due to their recent introduction into the drug supply chains and the sheer number of nitazenes potentially on the market.
Reagent Testing
Our opioid drug testing kit is vital if you are considering using opioids. The kit can be used to distinguish between different opioids and can also be used to detect ecstasy-like compounds, DXM, and some psychedelic drugs. For raw opium, it is advised to use our opioid testing kit along with our LSD testing kit, which will change colour in the presence of tryptophan in raw opium.
Further Reading
The Opium Poppy – DEA Museum
Drug Overdose Deaths: Facts and Figures – NIDA
Opium Consumption – National Library of Medicine
Opium Poppy' Cultivation and Heroin Processing in Southeast Asia – International SOciety for Horticultural Science
Drugs, Alcohol, and the First World War – The Lancet
Fatal Attraction: A brief History of Morphine – Association of Anaesthetists
Nitazenes – Drug Science
Old Drugs and New Challenges: A Narrative Review of Nitazenes
For a detailed history of opium in the ancient world, check out Milk of Paradise: A History of Opium by Lucy Inglis